


some boyhood bravery

by agent_orange



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Domestic, First Time, M/M, Minor Injuries, Oral Sex, Sexuality Crisis, Sleeping Together, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:18:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1750910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_orange/pseuds/agent_orange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John forces himself to fake a smile, shakes his head, and wishes it were that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some boyhood bravery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://figletofvenice.livejournal.com/profile)[**figletofvenice**](http://figletofvenice.livejournal.com/) for betaing.

"Another set," John says. He's been running through the leg exercises with Q-Tip, just like the VA doc said to do, only they've been at it for over least forty-five minutes, and Q-Tip's face is flushed and damp with sweat.

"Give it a fuckin' rest, bro," Q-Tip huffs, trying to get his breath back. "Last I checked, you weren't my fuckin' drill instructor. You don't even have rank to pull on me, _Corporal_. Oh, wait—you're not even _that_." He tries to get up, but John doesn't let him.

"If you wanna stay, you have to take care of your leg. My house, my rules." They both know John would never kick Q-Tip out, though. First off, he's a wounded Marine who also happens to be one of John's best friends. A few weeks back from OIF, John had found out that Q-Tip's roommate in Florida got some girl pregnant and she moved into their apartment. Since his parents still think he's the petty thief he was before the Marines, they don't want anything to do with him, and John wasn't about to let a fellow warrior keep living with Chaffin or wander the streets cuz he didn't have a roof over his head.

John's tiny apartment (bedroom, kitchen, 'dining area', bathroom) can hardly be considered a house, really, but Q-Tip's welcome as long as he wants to stay. "Do five more minutes and you can have a beer."

On top of the Percocet, it's not a great idea, but Q-Tip's only complained once today. It's barely eleven-thirty in the morning, not that it matters. Q-Tip's got more muscle damage than Doc Bryan thought he would, and even though he won't cop to being in pain ( _I'm jus' sore, that's all, man_ ), John can see lines form in Q-Tip's forehead, his normally loose jaw kept tight and clenched. "Good," he says when Q-Tip raises his legs again. "Good, keep going. You can do it. A little higher...okay, a little higher..."

"I know you're just tryin' a feel me up," Q-Tip says, that wide grin spreading across his face. "You know, if you have anythin' to tell me, I wouldn't rat you out."  

John forces himself to fake a smile, shakes his head, and wishes it were that easy.

*

Before she went off to college, Jenny used to do most of the cooking, so John got to eat healthy while his parents worked late, and he's never lived on his own before, making pasta, burgers, and raw food his big staples in Oceanside. Sometimes he watches cooking shows, just to see what other people can do, but he never tries anything complicated. He knows he'd just fuck it up, or start a fire in the kitchen, which is tiny and dingy enough as is.

Q-Tip's always hungry, or maybe he just eats 'til he's stuffed, like he never could in Iraq. John's sort of afraid that, if they keep going like this, with Q-Tip cleaning out the cabinets so fast, they'll run out of money, but that's not the case. Surprisingly, Q-Tip's great at stretching a dollar. When they've only got a little food in the fridge and it's too late to go out, or four days from payday, Q-Tip combines random leftovers into meals that taste a hell of a lot better than wild dog.

"What's even in this?" John asks, hardly deterred from taking another bite of bread.

"Eggplant, honey, raisins, nuts, those shiny brown things..." Q-Tip says. "Good, right?"

John nods. He has no idea what 'shiny brown things' Q-Tip's talking about, but this isn't Iraq and nothing in John's place is lethal. Food-wise, that is. Q-Tip's shoes, on the other hand, could definitely kill.

"I wonder if this is what being married is like," John says as he clears the table, which is almost always his job, since Q-Tip cooks most of the time. "Having a wife and everything."  

"Better, dude," Q-Tip responds. "You don't feel bad for not buying me shit."  

"Yeah, but you don't put out," John counters. It's a joke. Sort of.

"Why, you want me to?" he laughs. "What's for dessert, motherfucker?"

*

John's couch is old as shit, thirdhand, and the right side of it will suck you in and not let go. The first night Q-Tip slept on it, he lasted about two hours before giving up and piling pillows and blankets on the floor to sleep there instead.

So they both end up sleeping in the bed. It's not really big enough for two of them: even though they're both still all lean or whatever from combat, they're tall, and Q-Tip apparently likes to spread out when he sleeps. After weeks in rocky or muddy graves, John refuses to sleep on a shitty-ass couch in his own fucking apartment. Sometimes he thinks the bed-sharing situation should be way more awkward than it is (and it's not at all, really), but then he remembers what it was like when he first got back.

There was no one to make fun of John's song choice (or face); no one to alternate verses with, no beatboxer. John would think of something hilarious and turn to his three, only to realize that he was alone. Basically, living without Q-Tip there 24/7 felt like John was missing an arm.

Normally John sleeps on the right side of the bed, but Q-Tip pulls the 'wounded war hero' card and shottys it. And he steals the pillows to elevate his leg, the motherfucker. Q-Tip moves around a lot when he's asleep, but he mostly stays on his side of the bed. Except.

The first thing John notices when he wakes up Sunday is that it's raining. Hard. Pounding the windows and swaying the trees, the kind of rain that SoCal almost never gets. They won't be doing PT today, since Q-Tip's pretty much got normal range of motion back in his leg, but is smart enough not to fuck that up by running when there's a flood of biblical proportions outside.

The second thing John notices is that he's really warm, followed quickly by _holy shit! is that...?_ Of course it is. It couldn't be anything or anyone else. Q-Tip's hard, pressing up against John's ass. Q-Tip's hand is resting on the flat of John's stomach, his breath hot on the back of John's neck.

Neither of them can pass this off as 'Q-Tip being really confused in his sleep and mistaking John for his girlfriend.' Q-Tip doesn't even _have_ a girlfriend. John would know. Q-Tip had talked about a couple girls he'd fucked before deploying, but they were one-night stands, nothing serious.  
   
What's fucked up is that John doesn't think he wants to pass this off as accidental, a mistake in the haze between asleep and awake. He's tried to pass the abstract thoughts he's been having about Q-Tip (kissing him, fucking him, continuing to spend all their time together) as a result of too much fucking time together, but it's hard to deny his feelings now.

So when he feels the fingers on his belly slip lower, he covers them with his own, guiding them. "Q-Tip," he whispers. "If you're fucking with me, you better stop it right the fuck now."

"Nah," he hears Q-Tip say, voice gravelly with sleep. He feels it, too, buzzing against his skin like a bee. It tickles, and John turns his head so they're facing each other. Q-Tip's eyes are barely open. His lips are warm and chapped when John slides the pad of his thumb over them.

"For real?" John asks. If shit that could get them both kicked out of the Corps is about to go down, he wants to be sure.

"Shit, Christeson," Q-Tip laughs, lazy and slow from his belly. "I'm fuckin' spooning you. What the fuck do you think?"

John kisses him then, not even caring that Q-Tip's breath is sour and stale. Their lips are barely touching at all, surprisingly, and John wants to change that, but doesn't know how much is too much for their first kiss. His neck's getting a crick from the angle; he pulls back, rolling so he doesn't have to turn his head, and his thigh slips between Q-Tip's legs.

More is definitely okay, if John decides just from the fact that he feels Q-Tip's dick getting harder. So he opens his mouth when they kiss, and Q-Tip's tongue is definitely worse than his breath, but he kisses like a boss, unrelenting and hot. John hasn't kissed anyone like this since before basic, when he and Ellie decided the distance would be too much for them. It feels really fucking good—a little juvenile, and kind of weird that they've seen each other almost naked and are kissing when they could be fucking, but good.

Q-Tip, however, doesn't seem to think kissing is enough; he grinds his dick against John's leg, John thinks Q-Tip could probably come if he kept doing it long enough. But he jerks away when John touches him, pulling back like he's been hit.

"Sorry," Q-Tip says. "Too fast. Just. It's still kinda new, and—shit, sorry, I can't do this right now. Yet. I thought I could, but..." he trails off.

Which is weird, since he's the one who initiated it, but John's hardly going to force Q-Tip into anything he doesn't want to do.

"Okay," he says, almost a question, and goes to brush his teeth.

*

Weekdays, John has to report for PT, training exercises, and duties around base, while Q-Tip's doing desk duty. He hates it, can't wait for the doctors to clear him for normal physical activity. Even so, he probably won't be back in combat for some time.

Since he's been through BRC but doesn't have as much specialized training as some of the other guys, John gets orders to report to Camp Lejeune for the HRST Master Course.

"You can stay at my place while I'm gone, if you want," he tells Q-Tip, though Q-Tip doesn't really have anywhere else to go.

"Was planning on it, dude," Q-Tip says, chewing a toothpick. It's something Gunny does now, and that's probably who he picked it up from.

Suspension training definitely doesn't feel like the low-drag skill Staff Sergeant Martin had talked about—it was part of what sold John on Recon—but it's an adrenaline rush. When he's not getting yelled at, that is.

Some of the other guys party all weekend, but normally, John's so tired that he crashes early, spending Saturdays in bed catching up on the shows he missed. The few times he _does_ hit some of the bars, John's confused about what to do. If he and Q-Tip are a thing, he doesn't want to fuck it up by sleeping with some random girl. If they're not, well...John'll be pretty disappointed, honestly.

They talk on the phone a couple times, though there's too much physical distance and too many people hanging around John to get into what's going on with them. Instead, he asks about inane shit—the weather, Q-Tip's leg, if battalion's finally realized what a fucking psycho Trombley is ( _sunny, fine, unfortunately not_ ).

Q-Tip asks if John got to practice maneuvers on a zip line, because that's apparently something he wants to try. The answer's yes, but it's not exactly fun when you're soaking wet with sixty pounds of gear and an M-16 strapped to you, and a fuckin' scary gunnery sergeant yelling at you to get it fucking right this time.

"Oh," Q-Tip says, sounding disappointed, and John wonders if he said too much.

Jerking off in the shower, John tries his hardest not to think about Q-Tip. It doesn't work, and he always feels guilty afterward.

*

After graduation, the guys go to some Marine bar, which Onslow County has plenty of. It's filled with uniform-chasers, girls all dressed up and painted, sipping fruity-ass drinks. John could get some, he knows, and it wouldn't even take much, but honestly? He doesn't really feel like it. Kissing Q-Tip made him guess that nobody else would measure up.

John goes back to his motel room alone, wondering when he turned into such a fucking pussy. He's drunk, though, and stupidly texts Q-Tip.

_you asdhole. i can"t evem gert any cuz the only person iwabt is you._

He can practically hear the snarkiness is Q-Tip's reply. _you're acting gayer than Rudy right now,_ it says. _sleep it the fuck off and we'll talk about it when you get back._

*

The hangover is punishment enough, but John feels even stupider when he checks his flight details on his phone and sees the texts from last night. He wonders if them being together is a good idea, because they're both Marines, and if they do this and it goes south, John'll be out a best buddy.

When he really thinks about it, though, John realizes that there's no one he'd rather be with than Q-Tip. Not that their relationship will be easy as pie or anything, but still. For almost a year, Q-Tip's had his back every step of the way, keeping John from shooting civilians and getting his own ass shot and doing the seriously stupid shit Q-Tip says he left Florida because.  
   
Fuck, he can't even imagine rolling through Iraq without Q-Tip; if Doc or the LT had insisted on cas-evac'ing him, John would've been up shit creek without a paddle. John would've been the first guy between the company and the Hajjis, and therefore most likely his fault if Gunny or the LT got fucked up.

Except it's not just out of selfish need that he wants this. Q-Tip has a wicked sense of humor and an extensive mental catalogue of music.

He makes sure John doesn't get, like, scurvy; he's easy to talk to and surprisingly thoughtful, bringing home food and DVDs after a long day. And there's no denying the attraction. It's not like John had been openly checking out other dudes in the platoon, but between intense training and close living quarters, everybody sees pretty much everybody else stripped down to their skivvies. Q-Tip's no Rudy (not that John's into Rudy, or anything), but he's easy on the eyes, especially with his do-rag off.

John rubs at his tired eyes and remembers how in Iraq, sand would clump in Q-Tip's white-blond eyelashes and periodically crumble into his eyes, making them red and irritated. After a few instances of crying (involuntarily, he's quick to point out) while trying to watch his sector, Q-Tip traded with a civilian: Skittles, pound cake, and Kool-Aid for a keffiyeh he used to wipe his eyes or deflect the wind.

He remembers how Q-Tip's eyes would light up as he tore through verse after verse of tracks from _The Blueprint_ , and realizes he wants to be the one to make that happen.

It's all Q-Tip's fucking fault. John never bought into any of this cheesy, sentimental bullshit before. His sister would laugh if he told her. She'd say he left in hopes of becoming a hero and returned more sensitive than she is. But fuck it.

*

Q-Tip meets him at the airport, but John waits until they're in the car to say anything other than _hey_. There are too many people around; someone could hear them.

He takes a deep breath, braces himself, and says, "So here's the deal: I kind of really fucking like you. If you don't want to do this, just say the word and I'll drop it, but I need to know if you were just horny, or if...if you..." he doesn't want to say "like me", because he's not a fucking high school girl, so he thinks for a minute before continuing. "If you want this even half as much as I do." Then he mentally hits himself, because he doesn't want to sound fucking desperate or obsessed.

But Q-Tip smiles, lightly punching John in the arm, because they're at a crowded intersection just a few miles from Camp Pendleton. "No need to freak out, dude," he says. "I'm in it if you are."

*

Even with that, it takes them a few weeks to really get down to things. John's always tired when he gets home, so they end up falling asleep on the couch rather than fooling around a bit with the TV on in the background. Q-Tip normally keeps one arm slung over the back of the couch, and his legs open, meaning that their limbs are weirdly entangled when the sun comes up.

Sunday morning, though, a couple weeks after John gets back, he wakes up to Q-Tip telling him, "No PT today." At first John worries his leg's bad or something, but realizes that's not the case when Q-Tip pins his wrists to the bed and bites John's neck.

"I need to get breakfast first, though!" John protests, and Q-Tip just shakes his head.

"The fuck is wrong with teenagers today?" he asks, not really expecting an answer. "Turning down sex for a bowl of fucking Wheaties?"

"I'm hungry," John says. Q-Tip doesn't look appeased. "Fine. Let me brush my teeth and get some water, at least. Five minutes, I promise."

More important than brushing his teeth (though he does do that), John takes a minute to calm himself down. He's only been able to admit he wanted this for a short time, and now it's about to happen. And he's thought about doing this, both with Q-Tip and with other dudes, but he's never, and it's kind of intimidating. The splash of cold water on his face helps, and he takes a deep breath. This is hardly the most difficult thing he's ever done.

He makes it back in just under four, and Q-Tip's on him faster than John can register, hands roaming everywhere, quickly stripping John of his pants. For a minute, John worries Q-Tip'll call time out again, but the worry dissipates soon enough, when Q-Tip gets his tongue in John's mouth and pushes their hips together even more.

"Fuck," he says, thumbing over the crown of John's dick, which makes John accidently slam his head into the headboard. Q-Tip just laughs, sinking even lower and taking John's dick in his mouth.

It's John's first time with a guy, and a bunch of his high school classmates said being gay was weird and fucked-up, but it doesn't feel like that at all. It feels good. It feels right. Q-Tip's below him, making these hot little sounds as he sucks, and John runs a hand through what little hair Q-Tip has, trying to ground himself. He doesn't try to get John all the way down his throat, which is probably good; John thinks he might spontaneously combust if that were to happen.

But he curls his hand around what he can't reach with his mouth, and pushes two fingers behind John's balls, and John ends up coming too quickly anyway.

Q-Tip sputters, spitting a little before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He generously gives John a few minutes to recover before saying, "Your turn," and stretching out on the pillows.

John doesn't think twice about reciprocating in kind. Q-Tip's dick is warm and heavy in his mouth—a little hard to breathe around, but not impossible. Thankfully, Q-Tip doesn't thrust his hips forward and choke John, and gives him a couple minutes to get used to the feeling before touching his shoulders, which is probably a signal he wants John to fucking do something.

"Jesus, Jesus, _Evan_ ," he says after Q-Tip shoots across John's lips not much later. Q-Tip manages to raise an eyebrow at that, but doesn't say anything.

*

A month later, John asks if Q-Tip wants to move in. "Like, for real," he says.

Q-Tip smirks. "Bitch, I already did," he replies, and steals the candy bar right out of John's hand.


End file.
